2. Establish the Environment

2.1 Pre-work: Create a GENI account

From the Drop Down menu select your institution. If you got an account through the GENI Identity Provider, please select GENI Project Office.

Start typing the name of your institution and see the list become smaller.

You will be transferred to the Login Page of your institution. Fill in your username and password.

Complete the form that appears after you have successfully logged in and press Continue.

You will be transferred to an Activation Page. Make sure both checkboxes are checked and then press Activate.

Figure 2-1Logging into the GENI Experimenter Portal.

Congratulations, you have successfully created a GENI account.

2.2 Pre-work: Project lead adds you to a project

In order to use the portal to reserve resources, you must join a project. We have created a project for this tutorial.

The tutorial organizers should have added you to the project for this tutorial. On the home page, you should see that you are a member of at least one project.

If you are not doing this exercise as part of an in-person tutorial please sign up for a GENI account and join a project.

2.3 Generate and Download SSH Keypair

Access to compute resources in GENI is provided through ssh key pairs and thus the portal needs a public key to upload to compute resources. For the purposes of the tutorial we will have the portal create an SSH key pair for you. (However, if you prefer to use your personal public key you can choose to upload it.)

Once you are logged in, click on the Profile page.

On the Profile page in the SSH Keys section, select generate and download an SSH keypair button.

Later in the tutorial, this will allow you to log into your nodes securely without a password.

Figure 2-4Download an SSH Key Pair.

3. Obtain Resources

Now that you are a member of a project, you can create a slice and reserve resources.

3.1 Create a slice

Go to the Home tab.

Press the Create Slice button for this project.

As a slice name use the slice name on your worksheet. If you don't have a worksheet, use lab0<your initials>. You can leave the description empty and press Create Slice

Figure 3-1Create a new slice.

3.2 (optional) Renew your slice

Slices and the resources within them are reserved until their individual expiration times. Renewing allows you to extend the expiration time of your slice and the resources in them.

Slices and the resources within them have distinct expiration times. You must renew both the slice and the resources separately.

On the Slice page, select the Renew slice only radio button.

Click on the date below. In the calendar that pops up, select a date in the near future.

Press Renew to renew the slice. Renewing the slice now allows the resources to have longer initial expiration times.

Figure 3-2Renew the slice.

3.3 Reserve Two Virtual Machines at One Aggregate

The Portal is integrated with a tool, Flack, which allows you to draw topologies of GENI resources and then reserve them.

On the Slice tab, press the Flack button. Flack will open in a new tab.

Figure 3-3Launch Flack

Wait for Flack to load. You should see: your username, the slice name, and a list of aggregates. Flack should look like the picture to the right.

Figure 3-4Flack after it has loaded.

Find the aggregate listed on your worksheet.

Click the VM box next to that aggregate and drag it onto the canvas.

Repeat the above step. You should now see two VM boxes on the canvas.

Now click near one of the VM boxes on the canvas, then click and drag towards the other VM. Release when you reach the other VM. You should now see a line and a box representing a link connecting the two VMs.

The canvas should now look like the picture on the right.

To edit the name of each VM, click the i in the circle.

Figure 3-5Two VMs connected by a link.

In the field at the top, replace "VM" with "client".

Figure 3-6Edit the name of the VM. Set the Sliver Type on ExoGENI racks.

Now click on "Interfaces and Links" (this is the middle tab with the "link" symbol").

Enter an IP Address for this node of 10.1.1.1.

Enter a Mask of 255.255.255.0.

Then Press "Apply" at the bottom of the screen.

Repeat the above six steps for the second VM, labeling it "server" and setting the server's IP Address to 10.1.1.2 and a Mask of 255.255.255.0.

Figure 3-7Edit the IP Address and Mask of the VM.

Click the Submit button near the bottom of the page. When prompted, confirm you want to actually reserve resources.

Figure 3-8Two VMs connected by a link.

3.4 Check Whether Virtual Machines are Ready to be Used

After clicking the Submit button, wait for the canvas to turn green. (This may take awhile.)